Bamboula, Trenches 1–21

BAMBOULA (Tr 2:1)

(IV:79;14-4-37) Door between units 1 and 5: remove the foreign earth in the door between units 1 and 5. There is a step up from 0 to 5, the step being at 9.56. It is built of clay and medium small stones (flat), and is faced with lim. The lime is continuous with that of the 9.77-9.80 floor in unit 1, and slopes up. Going among and partly over the stones of the threshold, it then fuses with the 9.36-9.51 floor in unit 5. It thus appears certain that these two floors are contemporary.

(IV:93;20-4-37) Dig through the 9.77-9.80 floor, taking first the material of the floor itself only. It is made in part of lime, in part of chabara, and in part of clay. In places in the west it rests on rock, but in the east it rests on a layer of stoney red brown earth (9.71-9.93). Clean out the fill around the pithos, in the SE corner. It is of somewhat greyish earth with a few medium small stones.

(IV:93;21-4-37) Continue clearing the Baugrab of the pithos. It cuts bedrock at 10.30, 0 0.42 below the top of the pithos (9.88). At the line of the rock the cutting is packed with gravel. At the east the pithos is jammed up against the wall to unit 8. The top of the pthos is at 9.88.

(IV:97;21-4-37) Dig out the baugrab of the wall to units 5 and 9. In the west part it goes to bedrock, but in the east, following the line of the general N-S cutting of the rock, it goes to a pack of gravel. This baugrab is cut through the 9.71-9.93 floor, and was covered by the lime floor at 9.77-9.80. Before clearing the various wall and pithos cuttings we dug from below the base of the 9.77-9.80 floor, through red-packed earth with a great deal of crushed but not pulverized limestone, to a slightly less vivid red level, more sandy and without limestone, at 9.76-9.98. This sandy floor is actually only in the east; the rest is rock. (22-4-37;p.99) The inner (E) west wall also has a baugrab from the 9.76-9.93 (rock) floor, filled with decomposed rock. Clear this out. The wall is built of a narrow row of stone, filled behind with decomposed rock. dig through the 9.76-9.98 level, finding braxos, perhaps not in situ, at 9.76-10.14, save in the E, where there is an intermediate patch of sandy fill Photos Bam 79-82 of pithos with baugrab dug our, before removing. (see p.96,98)

The south baugrab was filled for the first four or five centimeters with red earth with much decomposed sandstone, below that with nearly pure sandstone. The e wall (to unit 8) also has a baugrab, filled with red earth with makxmxxxxxx gravel and fragments of green braxos. This stops at the bedrock and this too is cut from the rock to 9.93 floor.